BubbleStream

Peter Glassman

BLACKWATER FEVER

Synopsis

A resistant strain of falciparum malaria accounted for significant US casualties in Iraqi Freedom’s early years. A special research study to treat this type of malaria involved a CDC chief physician and two New York specialists. These three individuals induce, rather than treat acute malaria attacks with added delirium to obtain inside stock market trader information. Almost a billion dollars were made until collateral damage with death and attempted murders draw attention by the NYPD and the CIA. Senator Clement, Drs. Ganucci, Krantz and Bellini use three war returnee malaria patients to milk the stock exchange and use murder, intimidation and extortion to maintain their scheme.
Detective Furdis Nosh is a relentless redhead female sleuth who will not let go of the investigation. Former Special Forces Officer David Swanson is a malaria victim who wants out of the malaria study alive. He’s distraught over a colleague ending up comatose during one of his malaria episodes. The woman, Lisa Feldman, is kidnapped from the hospital as her memory of Krantz and Binelli returns. Swanson joins with CIA Agent Mallory Finder when Finder’s fiancée, Lisa Feldman is abducted.
Senator Clement uses all means at his disposal to thwart revelation of his malaria-stock market scheme. Snipers, contract killers and deadly healthcare workers reach out with their lethal tentacles to prevent exposure. Nosh and Fender are not enough to probe and disclose the stock market assault.

Author Biography

As a retired physician I’m devoting my time to writing novels, memoir-based fiction and short stories. My life as an author of fiction began in 2003 after a few years at Toastmasters International delivering captivating stories and speeches. I believe literature should be educational, fun, serious, full of feelings and always with a touch of fantasy and a thread of truth. Like all my novels true lifetime situations are interwoven with suspenseful and intriguing story lines. My 13 novels and short story book bear that philosophy out. Reviews of my books in Amazon.com have been 5-star. Comments for WHO WILL WEEP FOR ME such as “high school coming of age makes the story feel authentic and make the reader want more” is typical of reader satisfaction.
I live with my wife in San Antonio near my daughter and her family with four of my grandchildren. My goal as an author is to publish several novels a year with my novel portraying terrorism in the US, - OCEAN CITY HQ - recently published..

Author Insight

A Disease of War

A treatment resistant strain of malaria was common amongst early Iraqi War casualties. Two years after the start of the war and 2 billion US dollars later, the disease became a rare entity. War creates opportunists and three doctors and a US Senator subject three malaria returnees to medical manipulation for stock exchange information. Collateral damage includes murder,Wall Street sabotage and medical fraud.
Opportunism is a disease of war.

Book Excerpt

BLACKWATER FEVER

Chapter 1

Blackwater Fever

David Swanson looked out the window of his 7th floor New York apartment. The yellow morning horizon of just a few minutes ago was rapidly turning into a sunny day and the outside temperature reading was already 66 F. Not bad for October in New York City. This will be a good day. But he was soon to be proven wrong. Going to the desk in his small study, he smelled a peculiar but familiar odor coming from his body. It was there every time, after the attacks of drenching sweats and shaking chills. He attempted a few simple exercises and felt the usual soreness in the muscles of his shoulders, abdomen, and thighs. It had happened again .Another malaria attack and I don’t remember a thing.

He tried to think back to last evening when he had taken his latest medication. Usually he remembered the aura preceding his attack. He had gone out. What happened? Usually when he got the ringing in his ears, along with the throbbing temporal headaches, he had at least two-hours to get back to his apartment before the sweats and shaking chills began. The proof would be in the bathroom. He lifted the toilet seat lid, emptied his bladder, and there it was. His urine was dark red. His army doctor in Iraq described it as port wine. In dim light it looked almost black.

“Lieutenant Swanson, you have the type of malaria caused by a strain of the plasmodium parasite of the falciparum variety.”

“That means nothing to me, Major.” Swanson sat up in his frame bed at the field hospital. He was built like a cage fighter but with a college refinement–all the more deadly with the expertise of Special Forces training.

“The parasite lives and grows inside the red blood cells–your red blood cells. When it gets too big for where it lives, the red cell bursts releasing hemoglobin, the substance making red blood cells red. Then your kidneys get rid of it. You pee out the hemoglobin. It’s dark red because there’s no oxygen attached to it anymore.”

Major Robert Gordon held a chart showing the lifecycle of the plasmodium falciparum organism. “This little sucker started out in the salivary gland of a mosquito.”

“A friggin mosquito bit me and spit that thing into my body? For almost a year I’ve been dodging bullets, landmines, and RPG’s, and I get downed by a microscopic creature that lived in the spit of a bug?” Swanson steadied himself by hanging onto the bed rail.

“Lieutenant, you may feel a little dizzy because the net result of the whole process is that you tend to lose almost a whole unit of blood when your red cells burst. We have several medications we’re now using here in the Middle East which should prevent future attacks. However, it is possible this type of falciparum can remain dormant waiting for your system to get run down at which time its life cycle could start up again. Unless you take the medication when you have a cold or feel ill you could get another attack.”

“What happens to me now? I’m part of a special operations unit here in Baghdad. We’re ready to launch an important mission against a concentrated Al-Qaeda group and I have to get out of here.” Swanson fell back onto his pillow from the dizziness.

“We have a standard protocol for treating malaria and a few other serious infectious diseases in this place. You’re to be transferred to Ramstein Air Force Base and recuperate in Landstuhl Army General Hospital...” Major Gordon held up his hand to stop Swanson from interrupting. “…for at least two weeks Lieutenant. And there can be no discussion on this.”

Swanson remembered that first attack vividly. There were no blackouts in his memory at that time. He also remembered everything at the end of his two-weeks in the Landstuhl Army hospital when he had his second attack.

“Lieutenant Swanson, your strain of falciparum is not responding to the chloroquine or the primaquine antimilarials. We have to get your disease under control or it could kill you. But there’s good news.” The infectious disease Army specialist smiled. “You’re being shipped home to the states…to Walter Reed Army General Hospital.”

∆

Swanson tried to re-think his steps from last night. The headache and ringing in his ears started at dinner. He took two of his new antimalarial tablets and excused himself in the middle of a conversation with his date–the broker from Dallas. Yes. I remember her. After he took the medication, things became blurry. The sounds of other diners became loud and merged to incomprehensibility and he nearly fell over when he tried to stand up.

“David. David. Are you all right?” The lithe but strong woman steadied him onto his feet.

“It’s malaria. I just took my medication and have to lie down somewhere.”

“Let’s get you up to my hotel room. It’s only four floors up. Do you want me to call a doctor?”

“Yes. The number is on my medic alert bracelet. Get me upstairs first.”

Swanson put his hand to his forehead and looked at the mirror on his bedroom dresser. He tried to recall everything happening in her room but events going from the restaurant to her hotel room were not there. The most he could remember about her was her name, Lisa Feldman. Yes. He had her card. Swanson dialed the handwritten phone number on the back of her business card. He had met her at the exhibit hall of the Stock Brokers Eastern Regional meeting three-days ago. She specialized in computer software markets.

David Swanson didn’t have many close friends in New York City. It wasn’t that he was antisocial; he just didn’t have many friends or acquaintances. He had to make three phone calls. The first phone call was to his boss, Coleman Dandy, who was familiar with Swanson’s occasional recurrent malaria episodes. He had plenty of sick days left on the books.

“David, take care of you first. I’ll get someone to cover for you on the market floor servers. Do what you have to do and get back here soon.” Dandy hung up without asking about the results of his dinner with Feldman.

He dialed the next number and let the phone ring. He could picture the corner office of the laboratory at the VA hospital where Barbara Winn worked. She was both head nurse for infectious diseases and coordinator for malaria research studies with the chief of medicine.

“Barbara Winn speaking.”

Swanson told her of his latest falciparum attack but not about Lisa Feldman.

“Did you call Dr. Binelli?” she asked.

“I must have. I was discharged from the ER just like last time with a note to be followed up by Dr. Binelli and Dr. Krantz.”

“David I don’t understand why you have to keep seeing Krantz. He’s a psychiatrist.”

“Binelli tells me I need to have sequential mental status exams, because of my cerebral malaria. It’s in my records.”

“Why are you calling me David? My role in your treatment at the VA is purely from the research aspect of your peculiar strain of falciparum.”

“I consider you a friend and mentor with all that’s happened to me. Can we meet in private somewhere tonight?”

“You’re such a klutz when it comes to asking me for a date. I’ll tell you what. Let me prepare something at my place tonight around eight. You remember where it is? You’ve picked me up at my apartment twice before.”